We are not selling Sansevierias now because of the chaos caused by our move from Tustin to Perris, California in 1999, including the death of most of our mother plants in the winter of 2000 because of lack of heat in our greenhouses.     

        But, in the meantime - Greetings from the future!

         When I wrote THE SANSEVIERIA BOOK about 21 years ago, I was not a taxonomist, and today, in 2004,  I am still not a taxonomist.  I had no idea I would be reissuing the book in a format which did not exist at the time, at a price which cannot be beat (FREE).

         My original book is full of out-of-date names.  All horticultural books are full of out-of-date names. I collect horticultural books, and science is skipping along so swiftly that things are becomlng out of date faster and faster.  It is a very exciting time in which to be alive!  The speed with which we can seek out information is breathtaking.

         I have probably learned more in the past two decades than I did in my entire life before then.  When I first wrote the book, I jokingly guessed there were between twelve and twenty avid Sansevieria collectors in The United States Of America, and today, I am thrilled to report that I believe the number is up to forty, but the really exciting thing is that some interior designers landscape architects are actually thinking about using them in their designs.

         In 1975, I lined up my own collection of these plants on a piano bench. There were eight plants. I thought, "I am the luckiest woman in North America!"  I had just gotten my most recent plant, 'Loop's Pride' and I was almost beside myself with joy, it was rather as if a huge diamond had showed up in the compost heap.  Shortly thereafter I flew from Boston to California to meet Manny Singer who had a great love for all plants, but a peculiar interest in Sansevierias. He had been getting them out of Africa from the people who were supplying him with his other African succulents.  (Whenever I say "out of Africa" I am reminded of the film about Isaak Dinesen, with Meryl Streep intoning,  "Vunce I had a farm in Afreekar")---Manny had Sansevieria pinguicula, a plant the likes of which I had never imagined.  In no time I had fifteen kinds of Sansevieria, and I could not believe I was so lucky. I was amazed that nobody cared when I told them!

         So I moved to Southern California and today I have plants measured in square feet instead of as individuals. I have no idea how many kinds of Sansevierias I have. This is not only a census issue, I still have no idea what the names are for some of them, and in the past years I have been throwing out names, adding names, getting more plants, while the originals have become huge.  Some of the plants photographed in the original book as tiny potted plants are now over six feet tall and banging the roof of the greenhouse.

          I want to tell you a True Story about NAMES.  NAMES are what taxonomy is about.

          Once upon a time there was a man named Bernard Berenson, an art historian. He invented the method whereby we may often determine who painted an unsigned work, by an analysis of brushstrokes and other high tech things.  He was doing this in the mid to late 1800s.  He discovered a painter. He called this painter Amico Di Sandro,  which means, a friend of Botticelli, and you know who Botticelli is because he painted that famous "Venus on the half-shell".  Amico Di Sandro is really a nickname, meaning, "friend of Sandro, since Sandro was Botticelli's first name.  Berenson believed that this Amico Di Sandro fellow must have been a student of Botticelli because there were certain undeniable similarities in the style and brushstrokes.  People bought up these paintings by Amico Di Sandro.  Berenson was the ONE authority for early Italian renaissance paintings and a person of incredible influence; there are whole museums today which are filled with the works he uncovered.  Lord Duveen and Isabella Steward Gardner were just two of the people he influenced.  You might say he was a TAXONOMIST of art.  Well, one day he came to his senses and decided that there was no such painter as Amico Di Sandro. He realized they were just very early Botticelli paintings.

         He came out on the patio at breakfast in Florence,  Italy, and announced to the guests assembled,  "Ladies and Gentlemen, Amico Di Sandro is dead." and one of the people present at this breakfast was my friend Arthur McComb, so this is not some kind of apocryphal story, it is the real deal.  Arthur McComb is yet another great art historian.  He died in Boston in 1968.  He was a kind of wild man, even to the end, like many who hang out with artists, writers and other subversives.

          Anyway, if Bernard Berenson could kill off Amico Di Sandro, a painter whom he accidentally created, I see no reason why any taxonomist, or other person dealing with the names of plants, should have a problem in changing the names of plants.  Even if that taxonomist put those names on himself or herself.  After due deliberation, of course.

          Many years later I came to be friends with a Duveen, and with the great niece of Bernard Berenson, who was killed on one of the two planes which crashed into the World Trade Towers.  We are all connected, if we look hard enough.

 

          About THE SANSEVIERIA BOOK

 

          This is not a "reprint" in the old-fashioned sense, which often refers to a modern copy of an old book which was originally printed with moveable metal type.   I created 'The Sansevieria Book' in the early 1980's with a small home-made personal computer.  The photos were screened to create a pattern of ink dots, pasted up, re-photographed and printed with ink pressed onto paper by photographically-created plates in a huge fast modern printing press - a tedious process belonging to the end of the 20th Century which produces a dated, unchangeable and instantly out-of-date paper document.   This book is now an electronic copy of the original book which, if you wish, you can print out for yourself on a printer attached to your computer.  FREE!

          My husband and I disagree about how to treat our Sanseveria information in the future - he wants to upgrade the original book on our computer, but I prefer to leave it in its original condition.  After you download the reproduction of the original, I intend to provide current updates on our website, in the certain knowledge that some of them are destined to be obsolete as soon as they are published.  But - if you'd like to see the original document and perhaps print it out - just click on - INTRODUCTION  and - THE SANSEVIERIA BOOK.

         If you would like to see my last list of Sansevieria names  - click on - LIST.

          If you'd like to participate in on-line Sansevieria discussion - I sponsor two un-moderated discussion groups wherein collectors discuss, ask and answer questions about Sansevierias and anything else we feel like.  Sansevierias are IN and when this leaks out...there's no telling what will happen.  Folks are stockpiling them like mad, trading, discovering new ones all the time, and this cannot help but bring out the most warlike of all plant collectors.  Our membership is international in scope and boasts at least two persons who have actually written books.  I have two lists because I've noticed that occasionally one list or the other stops working, so they act to back each other up.  If you wish to join one or both of the lists - send a blank email letter to Sansevierias-subscribe@yahoogroups.com  and/or - Sansevierias-subscribe@topica.com.